Why Are So Many Real Estate Teams Suddenly Joining EXp Realty - Inman

6/3/2021 Why Are So Many Real Estate Teams Suddenly Joining EXp Realty?
- Inman
TEAMS
Why are so many teams suddenly joining eXp

Realty?
Recent months have seen team after team decamping for eXp. The leaders of
those teams say they were persuaded by lucrative revenue sharing options and by
watching fellow agents switch rst
An image from eXp’s virtual world. Image by: eXp Realty
BY JIM DALRYMPLE II
Today 1:00 A.M.
Jonathan Lahey had been looking to make a change for a long time.
For more than a decade, Lahey had been leading a RE/MAX team in the
Washington, D.C., area. He wanted to expand his business’ footprint, but the
Watch the CEOs of KWx, Realogy, Compass, Opendoor and RE/MAX live June 15-17.
×
logistics always got in the way.
REGISTER TODAY
https://www.inman.com/2021/06/03/why-are-so-many-teams-suddenly-joining-exp-realty/?utm_source=dailyheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_ca… 1/13
6/3/2021 Why Are So Many Real Estate Teams Suddenly Joining EXp Realty? - Inman
“I tried and tried,” Lahey told Inman. “I tried to make the

J
numbers work for years. I thought maybe we could do it
with different brokerages. But that wasn’t going to work
because the overhead isn’t just the franchise and
franchise fee. It’s the staff and the office space. We
weren’t going to be profitable for years.”
Jonathan Lahey
But then last year, Lahey finally hit upon the solution he
had been looking for: eXp Realty. After looking into eXp’s business model,
Lahey’s team of more than two dozen agents made the switch in April. Just two
months later, he’s already on the verge of expanding his team to new markets
including San Diego and New York.
“We’re borderless,” Lahey said. “We literally can expand anywhere we want.”
Inman Connect
2021 digital & in-person events! Secure your tickets now.
How will the inventory crisis end?
Inman Connect events ticket sale extended through June 1
Last call for Inman Connect Las Vegas early-bird pricing
Lahey is just one of numerous team leaders who have jumped to eXp in recent
months. Others include the Keller Williams team that also switched in April;
the Arizona indie that joined in February; and the RE/MAX team in Toronto
that moved last fall.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. And while eXp has long been a growing
company, the wave of headlines about defections to the firm have been
particularly fast and furious recently.

J
To figure out why exactly so many teams are joining eXp at this specific
moment, Inman reached out to team leaders across the U.S. Although no two
teams are exactly identical, the explanations team leaders provided could be
broadly boiled down into four points:
There are generous financial incentives brokers couldn’t find elsewhere.

There’s a kind of domino effect as brokers watch influential peers make
the jump.
EXp provides unique opportunities related to collaboration and growth.
Trending
7 daily habits of top producers that'll bolster your business
Perfect your elevator pitch to win more business — here’s how
Inman Handbook on pending home sales
SPONSORED CONTENT
Education will power your brokerage
S PO N SO R E D CO N T E N T
From iBuying to iRenting: Innovation in residential real

estate
Read More
Financial incentives
Jimmy Rex spent years leading an influential Keller Williams team in a tech-
and university-dense area of Utah about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City. Over
the years, he brought on numerous agents. Keller

J
Williams, of course, has pioneered the concept of profit
sharing, but Rex told Inman that despite his success over
the years the company’s profit share paid “next to
nothing.”
“I’ve made less than $60,000 in 15 years of profit Jimmy Rex

sharing,” he said.
Rex ultimately decamped with his three agents and five administrators for
eXp in March. He’ll have to rebuild his list of recruits of course, but he
estimated that if he were to bring as many agents to eXp has he did to Keller
Williams, he’d be making between $25,000 and $30,000 a month from the
company’s revenue sharing feature.
St. Louis-based Kathy Helbig-Strick also previously led a

team at Keller Williams, before going independent for
several years and then finally joining eXp in April. She
told Inman that profit sharing at Keller Williams was a
struggle because “you never really knew what to count
on.”
Kathy Helbig-Strick
Read Next
Why are real estate company share prices falling despite good news?
The New Normal: What if agent pay was more than just commissions?
The New Normal: What if specialization is the answer?
We're about that Teams life this June at Inman
SPONSORED CONTENT
Product Demo: Get every listing to closing quickly with Curbio
Featured Inman Insider Webinars

Beyond HGTV: The Home Updates That Deliver ROI
Register
Hands-on with Knock Home Swap
Watch now
ACCESS: The Digital Listing Presentation and Virtual Open House

Platform
Watch now
Propertybase Salesforce Edition - Every Brokerage is Unique.

Your CRM Should Be, Too!
Watch now
“It had some incentives, but it fell flat for a lot of people,” she said, adding that
revenue sharing at eXp is more transparent.
This theme came up again and again. And the idea is that while there are other
companies that share profits or revenue, many team leaders felt that eXp’s
options are more lucrative.
That was one of the main points that initially drew Kyle
J
Whissel and his San Diego-based team to eXp three years
ago. At the time, Whissel’s team had around 25 agents —
it has since grown to more than 40 — and he explained
that one of the draws was that tapping into eXp’s revenue
sharing and stock offerings meant agents could access a
cash stream even when they weren’t actually selling Kyle Whissel
houses.
“Initially the stock and the revenue share were very attractive to me,” Whissel
said, adding that he hit is goal for passive income from revenue sharing in two
years.
But of course Whissel moved to eXp long before the current wave. And eXp has
been offering financial incentives to join up all along.
So why is this trend happening now?
Whissel speculated that it could have something to do with the company’s

recent stock performance.
“There was a big pop in the stock price,” Whissel noted. “Then they announced
the stock split, and it shot up like crazy. I think any time there’s a stimulus,
that puts a lot of eyeballs on it.”
Credit: Google
Whissel was referring to a remarkable run up in eXp’s stock price. It began last
spring, when shares were trading for less than $5, and peaked this February
when they topped $80. Whissel is also right about the split; the company
announced in January that it would turn each share into two, and the
announcement in particular helped propel share prices to their all-time highs.
As with many other real estate companies, eXp’s stock price has since fallen
and in the first days of June shares were trading at around $32.
But the huge run up in share prices did coincide with the moment in which
many teams would’ve been exploring a switch to eXp. And ultimately there
may simply have been a fear of missing out on future gains — which is
something Lahey personally experienced.
“I had an agent call me and say, ‘I’ve made $4 million in stocks,'” he said.
All of this adds up to the most straightforward potential explanation for what’s
going on: That agents are simply motivated by the chance for financial gains,
and the trend of teams joining eXp comes down to economics.

J
That was a major part of the argument real estate consultant and analyst Mike
DelPrete recently made when talking to Inman.
“It all comes down to money,” DelPrete, who has

identified eXp as one of the top brokerage models of the
moment, told Inman. “That’s the easiest way to boil it
down.”
DelPrete also said that while eXp has touted an array of

selling points such as its technology and virtual world, in Mike DelPrete
large part what’s driving the growth is really just “a lot
simpler than that.”
“The promise is that agents can make more money,” he said.
The domino effect

Although money may be a major piece of the puzzle, the agents who spoke with
Inman also said there’s more to what’s going on. And one of the most common
factors they mentioned was influence from other agents and teams.
Michael Perry was among those who raised this point.

Perry cofounded the 53-person Perry Group in Salt Lake
City and spent years with Keller Williams. Perry said he
“loved Keller Williams” but began exploring a switch to
eXp after watching agents such as Rex.
“After Jimmy Rex joined, he set the meeting up,” Perry

said.
Michael Perry
Perry also said he was influenced by Tom Daves, a

Northern California broker who left Keller Williams more than a year ago for
eXp. Taken together, those switches lent credibility in Perry’s mind to the eXp
model.
“I loved Keller Williams, so it really helped to hear someone’s story from

J
Keller Williams,” Perry added. “I think the trust factor was just higher there.”
Perry’s team ultimately followed Rex and Daves, joining eXp in early April.
Lahey made a similar point, saying many agents seemed to be “waiting to see if
a big name would go.”
“When bigger names start to move one by one,” he said, “it’s a domino effect.”
EXp itself sees this as a major factor as well.
In a conversation with Inman, President Dave Conord

explained that in eXp’s early days, the company had an
agent count in the hundreds — as opposed to more than
55,000 today — and that teams were often spread out over
the entire country. As a result, many agents weren’t
familiar with eXp.
Dave Conord
Over time, however, agents who join eXp end up
evangelizing about their experiences when they meet up at industry events.
Conord described this as a kind of “prairie dog” effect, meaning that when one
person makes a move, dozens of other heads pop up to see what happened. And
as bigger and bigger names join, the process snowballs — which appears to be
happening now.
“We’re getting some people who have been legacy members of other
brokerages that people thought would never leave,” Conord said. “When those
people move, it’s a much larger ripple effect.”
Renee Funk saw this firsthand. She and her team in

Florida joined eXp just over three and a half years ago. At
the time, she said the most common reaction from other
industry members was confusion. But over time, her
success — her team has grown from six agents to more
than 80 since joining eXp — and that of other teams has
served as a kind of “proof of concept.” Renee Funk
As a result, Funk said there’s a kind of building

J
momentum right now. And instead of facing confusion, today she’s fielding
calls from agents considering following in her footsteps.
“There’s a considerable number of incoming questions and conversations,” she

said.
Collaboration, expansion and growth

The team leaders who spoke with Inman cited an array of other factors that
also persuaded them. For example, many argued that eXp facilitates
collaboration in a way that’s difficult to pull off at other companies.
“Everybody I trained at Keller Williams becomes my competition,” Rex said.

“Whereas at eXp, I have a huge financial incentive to help everyone.”
Rex was referring to the way eXp’s revenue sharing and stock programs
provide rewards for agent’s recruiting efforts, and many of the leaders who
spoke with Inman similarly praised eXp for turning other would-be
competitors into collaborators.
In short, eXp returns 50 percent of company revenue to its agents, and the
company uses specific equations to break down how much agents get for their
own performance as well as the performance of those they recruit.
“People are so much more willing to share because of the stock and the
revenue share,” Whissel said. “That collaboration has truly become my
favorite part.”
Others pointed to expansion opportunities. Funk, for example, said before she
joined eXp, she was climbing a conventional ladder that involved building a
team and then turning it into a brokerage. But finding eXp meant she didn’t
have to take that final step.
“Until eXp came along, we didn’t know there was another option,” Funk said.
“We didn’t know there was a model that would allow us to scale our growth and
accelerate our business and which would allow us to focus on what’s most
J
important.”
To be sure, these features have long been a part of the eXp model. But thanks
to the domino effect they appear to be reaching more people right now than
ever before.
The question now, then, is if this high-profile growth will continue. There’s two
ways to look at this question. The first would be to assume the current trend
was linked to stock prices and will consequently slow.
But no one who spoke with Inman thought that would be the case. Of course,
Inman spoke with team leaders who joined eXp, so they have a dog in the fight
so to speak. But virtually everyone argued that the eXp model has reached a
critical level of recognition, to the point that the momentum isn’t going to stop
any time soon.
“I believe they’re all going to come,” Lahey ultimately concluded when asked
how many agents might ultimately join eXp. “I truly believe this is the best
model I’ve seen.”
Email Jim Dalrymple II
TOPICS: eXp Realty | Keller Williams | RE/MAX | teams
Hide Comments
COMMENTS
2 Comments Sort by Oldest

J
Add a comment...
Kevin Kc
Very Interesting.
Like · Reply · 32m
Chris Allen Taylor

There are many much smarter than I joining and I DO get the draw, but as much as the profit
sharing at KW is a joke and something I never put any thought to due to the paltriness of it, the eXp
"Virtual World" is a bit of an embarassment in my opinion. The first time I saw it probably 6 years
ago my first reaction was "You can't be serious?" and seeing that picture of the world on the
headline my first thought was "My God. All this money and they're still a Simms video game??"
(And can you guys PLEASE stop blasting emails and LinkedIn messages begging Agents to watch
a recruitment video?)
Like · Reply · 18m
Facebook Comments Plugin
Sign up for Inman’s Morning Headlines

What you need to know to start your day with all the latest industry
developments
carlosmacaspac@gmail.com
Sign me up
By submitting your email address, you agree to receive marketing emails from Inman.
Inman Products
About Select
Contact Inman Events Inman Handbooks
Support Connect Now Connect Video
Inman Connect
Advertise Email Newsletters
Connect Las Vegas
Sponsor Connect
Careers Luxury Connect

J
Code of Conduct
Privacy
Terms of Use
Community
Facebook Groups Contributor submissions
Coast to Coast Image submissions
Agent to Agent
Awards
Broker to Broker
Inman Innovators
Vendor to Vendor
Inman 101
Inman Influencers
©2021 Inman All Rights Reserved.

Why Are So Many Real Estate Teams Suddenly Joining EXp Realty - Inman

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Why Are So Many Real Estate Teams Suddenly Joining EXp Realty - Inman

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

6/3/2021 Why Are So Many Real Estate Teams Suddenly Joining EXp Realty?

Why are so many teams suddenly joining eXp

An image from eXp’s virtual world. Image by: eXp Realty

“I tried and tried,” Lahey told Inman. “I tried to make the

2021 digital & in-person events! Secure your tickets now.

How will the inventory crisis end?

Inman Connect events ticket sale extended through June 1

Last call for Inman Connect Las Vegas early-bird pricing

particularly fast and furious recently.

There are generous ﬁnancial incentives brokers couldn’t ﬁnd elsewhere.

7 daily habits of top producers that'll bolster your business

Perfect your elevator pitch to win more business — here’s how

Inman Handbook on pending home sales

From iBuying to iRenting: Innovation in residential real

the years, he brought on numerous agents. Keller

“I’ve made less than $60,000 in 15 years of proﬁt Jimmy Rex

St. Louis-based Kathy Helbig-Strick also previously led a

The New Normal: What if specialization is the answer?

We're about that Teams life this June at Inman

Featured Inman Insider Webinars

Hands-on with Knock Home Swap

ACCESS: The Digital Listing Presentation and Virtual Open House

Propertybase Salesforce Edition - Every Brokerage is Unique.

So why is this trend happening now?

Whissel speculated that it could have something to do with the company’s

and the trend of teams joining eXp comes down to economics.

“It all comes down to money,” DelPrete, who has

DelPrete also said that while eXp has touted an array of

“The promise is that agents can make more money,” he said.

The domino eﬀect

Michael Perry was among those who raised this point.

“After Jimmy Rex joined, he set the meeting up,” Perry

Perry also said he was inﬂuenced by Tom Daves, a

“I loved Keller Williams, so it really helped to hear someone’s story from

EXp itself sees this as a major factor as well.

In a conversation with Inman, President Dave Conord

Renee Funk saw this ﬁrsthand. She and her team in

As a result, Funk said there’s a kind of building

“There’s a considerable number of incoming questions and conversations,” she

Collaboration, expansion and growth

“Everybody I trained at Keller Williams becomes my competition,” Rex said.

Email Jim Dalrymple II

TOPICS: eXp Realty | Keller Williams | RE/MAX | teams

2 Comments Sort by Oldest

Chris Allen Taylor

Facebook Comments Plugin

Sign up for Inman’s Morning Headlines

Careers Luxury Connect

©2021 Inman All Rights Reserved.

You might also like